


In Dreams

by CSHfic, VSfic



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Book 3: Fire (Avatar), Developing Relationship, F/M, Fire Nation (Avatar), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Prophetic Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28417314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CSHfic/pseuds/CSHfic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/VSfic/pseuds/VSfic
Summary: After the Day of the Black Sun, Zuko begins having prophetic dreams. He dreams of two futures: one with Sokka, and one with Suki.It’s a problem.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 305
Collections: Zukka 18+ Chaos Server: Jan 2021 Exchange





	In Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mushiwiththegoodtea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushiwiththegoodtea/gifts).



> This prompt was so interesting, I really couldn't resist!

The first dream comes on the war balloon as he flees Caldera City.

He’s only half asleep, flickering between dozing and nervously watching the burner. The distant shape of the caldera shrinks on the horizon. He can still see the fires burning, though the invading army has long since begun its retreat. Even at this distance, he can taste the smoke on his tongue. His fingers prickle with the memory of the lightning coursing through him. The rest of him is just… numb. The regret and the shame he’d felt seeing that empty jail cell have sunk their hooks into him, but there's nothing he can do about it now. He was too late. All he can do is keep moving. He’s not safe yet, still visible to anyone who might think to pursue him, but he’s too exhausted to keep his eyes open.

He dreams of breathless laughter. A ball of emotion settles hot and tight in his chest. He can’t identify it, he doesn’t know why.

Zuko startles awake with the sound ringing in his ears, and the dream slips through his fingers like water before he can grab hold of the memory. He doesn’t sleep again until he’s setting down in the forest outside the Western Air Temple.

The Avatar and his friends are… unhappy to see him.

(He’s not sure why he’d hoped for anything else.)

He’s come all this way, though. He can’t just give up. The Avatar needs to learn firebending. He can wait. He can… think of something, some way to convince them that he really is good now.

Besides, Zuko reasons, he has nowhere else to go, so he might as well stay.

Zuko sets up camp in the woods outside the air temple, tent pitched on damp ground and sleeps.

He squints against the glare of the sun, glancing off the edges of the glaciers towering over them. The ice shines brilliantly blue in the light, and the sunlight is comforting even in the bitter cold. He’s wearing heavy blue furs, thick three-fingered mittens that turn his hands clumsy in his lap. He has a spear, bone and leather instead of metal. He knows he’s just holding it, and feels a little thrill of amusement that it’s been handed to him, as though he actually knows what to do with it.

He turns his scarred cheek against his hood as a little gust of wind whistles through the passage between the ice. Waves lap gently at the side of the canoe. His coat smells like—someone, familiar and comforting, and he takes a reluctant moment before he raises his head again.

The boat rocks suddenly, and Zuko yelps in surprise, gripping the side to steady himself. A delighted crowing rises up behind him. A spear swings around over his shoulder, dripping icy water down on his head. Zuko watches the fish wriggle on the end for a moment before it shakes off into the basket at his feet.

An arm slides around his waist from behind. Zuko turns his head, and for a moment he can only stare. It’s… the Avatar’s friend, Sokka—undeniably, older but still grinning with the same mischief that used to frustrate him to no end. It sends a little jolt through him, now.

“I told you I’d show you how it’s done,” Sokka says, flush with the excitement of their first catch, more dazzling even than the sunlight glancing off the ice. Zuko smiles, too, and leans in.

A twig snaps, and Zuko jerks awake.

He’s so stupid.

He’d come here looking to join their group, and the first thing he’d done was _burn one of them_. How will he ever get the Avatar to trust him, now?

He tries to settle again, with half his attention turned to the forest, in case the Avatar's earthbending teacher comes back. He has a hard time falling asleep after, ribs aching and bruised. He’s so stupid. No matter what he does, it seems like he’s always messing up somehow. He catches an hour of sleep, finally, with the soft light of dawn pressing up against the horizon. He’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved, that it’s not the same dream as before.

He dreams of home, and he thinks… at first he thinks he’s had this dream before, when he’d first been banished, rocked asleep on the waves. He’d dreamt often of redeeming himself, then, becoming his father’s perfect son, reclaiming his right to the throne.

He’s wearing the Fire Lord’s robes, seated in front of a mirror with the blue light of dawn stretching through the balcony doors.

Sokka is seated on the bed, dressed in royal robes. He’s wearing Roku’s crown, and the sight of it makes him flush, makes Sokka grin cheekily in response.

He blinks, and the scene shifts. There’s a woman leaning over his shoulder. She catches his eye, smiles softly. He doesn’t know her. Her perfume tickles his nose, her fingers slide through Zuko’s long hair. She turns her head, and his mother’s hairpiece glitters in the early morning light. She leans—

Zuko shoots up, heart thumping wildly in his chest. It takes him a moment to realize what woke him—the faint smell of smoke, carried on the wind.

He leaps to his feet and sprints for the air temple.

Sokka smiles at him, faintly, when he leaves Zuko to his new room, and Zuko is hit with such a strong sense of deja vu that he’s almost dizzy with it. As soon as he’s sure Sokka’s gone, he throws himself down on his futon and buries his face in the dusty bedding.

He needs to… he needs to keep an eye on this. Whatever this is. A crush, or… or…

He can’t do this, is all. He needs to teach Aang firebending. He needs to _focus_. He needs… well, he probably needs to sleep, because he’s exhausted. He’s barely slept. Katara hates him. He’s nearly ruined everything, he’s nearly died—

Well, the usual stuff, mostly. He sighs. The sound is muffled by the bed roll. Zuko rolls away from the window and lets his eyes drift closed.

He’s wearing Earth Kingdom greens. His knees are folded under a heavy skirt, back straight beneath an armor chestplate. It’s much lighter than the metal Fire Nation armor. He feels lighter wearing it, too, in an entirely different way.

He’s not alone.

Someone shifts to his left, but he can’t see them well out of his damaged eye. A hand comes into view first, feather light as it glides over the rough plane of his cheek, tilts his face up to the light. The woman comes next. He’s spent years learning everything he can about the Avatar, so he recognizes her immediately by her clothes and her face paint.

It’s not Kyoshi, obviously. She’s centuries gone, and this feels _real_ , not just the imaginings of a spirit vision. Zuko feels strangely off-kilter with the association anyway, like there’s something there he’s not quite remembering. It’s slippery in the dream, and the thought glides away between his fingers before he can catch it.

She smiles fondly. His hair brushes over his shoulder as she tilts his head to the side. She swipes one white-painted thumb over his cheek. The smell of the greasepaint hits him, and Zuko blinks his eyes closed at some misplaced nostalgia. He feels her lean closer, and before he can open his eyes again she presses a light kiss to his hairline, no doubt smearing her ruby lipstick on his skin.

When he wakes, it’s to the ceiling in the Western Air Temple, to the buttery light of dawn. He closes his eyes again, just lies there picturing her white painted face, her red lips, her eyes—

Her eyes. The woman from his other dream, the one wearing his mother’s crown.

His palms sweat. He doesn’t know why.

Aang is expecting him to start his training today. He can’t just lie here all morning, wrapped in the memory of a dream, no matter how real it had felt, or how badly he wants to.

The rough fabric of the prisoner’s uniform clings to his back in the humidity. It makes his skin itch. He’s standing in a prison yard, and one glance around is enough to recognize the Boiling Rock, air warping with steam rising off the volcanic waters.

There’s a riot brewing in the yard. Zuko watches the prisoners for a moment, confused, as they throw fists and fire at each other, and the guards. He turns, and his breath catches at the sight of her. It’s the woman from his dreams, only… she’s just a girl this time, practically his age. She’s wearing her hair in the same style, but she’s bare faced, with the same prisoner’s uniform that Zuko is wearing.

“Are you ready?” she asks him.

Zuko starts to nod. A hand falls on his shoulder. He turns, and sees—

Sokka, not in a prisoner’s robe, but dressed as a guard, grinning, fingers curling tightly around Zuko’s arm—

Zuko startles awake in Appa’s saddle, heart leaping in his throat. He curls inward and clutches his chest, willing his pounding heart to settle.

He lies there for a long moment, just breathing.

Of course, his dream doesn’t make any sense, because… Sokka as a prison guard? Zuko has no idea what his subconscious is trying to tell him, but he hates the way his heart pounds in his throat, the clammy flush of his skin.

The wind tugs at his clothes as he leans up. Aang glances back over his shoulder at him, but if he’d noticed Zuko’s restless sleep, he doesn’t show it.

“The Sun Warrior’s temple is just up ahead,” Aang says lightly, and Zuko puts the dream from his mind.

When Sokka asks him where the prisoners from the failed invasion would be taken, the Boiling Rock is on the tip of Zuko’s tongue.

Zuko tells him with a prickling sense of unease, but… this explains his strange dream, right? He must have overheard Sokka talking about the prisoners.

It’s probably nothing.

Zuko knows he needs to go with him, anyway.

Zuko is standing at the rail overlooking the prison yard, stumbling over his words. He’s never been good at this, not like Uncle, but Sokka had seemed so discouraged. The look on his face twists something deep in Zuko’s gut that he’s been steadfastly ignoring, makes his heart beat with the memory of a dream. He forces his gaze down from the cloud, half-way through stumbling over some abused metaphor, and watches Sokka’s face light up.

The relief, at having finally said something right, only lasts a moment.

“It’s Suki!” Sokka crows, pointing out over the crowd. Zuko follows the line of his finger, and then goes very, very still.

“Suki,” Zuko breathes. “And… Suki, she’s…”

Sokka doesn’t seem to notice Zuko’s surprise, even though he feels paralyzed with it. An excited flush has spread over his cheeks, eyes bright.

“My girlfriend,” Sokka says, snapping his faceplate shut. Zuko feels like the floor is sliding out from underneath him.

It’s her. It’s her, she’s here, it’s _actually happening_.

 _How_ is this happening? Zuko had been dreaming. It wasn’t supposed to be real, it wasn’t supposed to come _true_ —

(Would the others…?)

No, that’s crazy. Zuko is… and Suki and Sokka are…

Sokka is already half-way down the stairs. Zuko rushes to follow him before he can lose him in the crowd.

The prison uniform _does_ itch.

Suki hasn’t said anything, and so Zuko hasn’t either. She keeps shooting him suspicious glances, though, not-quite-glares. It makes him nervous, and a little confused, because _he_ knows _her_ , but how does _she_...?

“Oh good, you guys have met,” Sokka says, as soon as he finds them again.

“Actually, we met a long time ago,” Suki says.

Zuko feels frozen. All he can picture is her leaning over him, breath feathering against his skin as she paints white streaks across his cheek.

“We did?” Zuko croaks.

Suki frowns at him, tongue pressed against her cheek as she reins in her temper.

“Yeah,” Suki says. “You kind of burned down my village.”

“Oh,” Zuko says. A strange mixture of relief and disappointment churns in his stomach. He feels himself flush, and turns his gaze steadfastly to his mop. “Sorry... about that. Uh. Nice to see you again.”

Suki’s eyes narrow. She huffs a quiet sigh as the other guard passes across the room. Her fingertips brush the edge of Sokka’s hand as they duck behind the stairwell to discuss their escape plan, and Zuko feels something dangerously close to longing tighten his throat as he follows them.

Zuko dozes with his knees drawn to his chest, shirt wrapped loosely around the frozen hardware he’d stripped from the cooler walls. It’s too cold to sleep, but meditation, focusing on his breath of fire and the feeling of his inner flame coiling in his gut, is not unlike dozing.

Images come like the snatches of a dream.

Zuko, standing in the gently falling snow, wet flakes clinging to his boots. Sokka, with a toddler in his arms, so bundled in her tiny blue coat that her face is all but swallowed up by her fluffy hood. She squeals with laughter as Sokka tosses her in the air, catches her easily, over and over, grinning at her reaction.

“You’re going to drop her, you idiot,” he hears Katara say, sounding amused.

“He won’t,” Zuko says immediately, without a shred of doubt in his mind.

Zuko doesn’t hesitate when he jumps for the gondola, and Sokka catches him, too.

They’re in the air. They’re safe.

An infectious giddiness had settled over them almost from the moment they’d made it off the gondola, like they couldn’t quite believe they’d escaped. Sokka’s father has taken to navigating with skill, and surprising patience as Chit Sang attempts his own instructions. Zuko should help them, but…

Zuko slides down against the wall of the cockpit almost as soon as he’s stepped inside, and then he just… stays there. Physically he’s exhausted, from the cooler, from the fight, but his mind is a tangle of nervous thoughts, too. He knows he wasn’t imagining it, that he really had dreamed of Sokka and Suki in the prison yard. He's grasping to understand it. Zuko has suffered through strange dreams his entire life, but they’ve never been so clear as his dreams of Sokka and Suki.

 _Visions_ of Sokka and Suki.

And if these are visions, if that moment overlooking the yard in the Boiling Rock was only the first of many to come true, then Zuko doesn’t know what to think, because…

Because apparently he hasn’t just been having romantic dreams of Sokka—embarrassing, maybe, but a crush he can easily ignore—or of a woman that he’s never met, just a figment of his imagination.

It _doesn’t_ matter, though, because the futures he’s been shown are impossible.

Zuko watches them both from across the room. They’d barely gotten the airship into the air before they were all over each other, Suki with her arm over Sokka’s shoulder, Sokka leaning into her side. Zuko watches as Suki nudges him and leans in to whisper something in his ear. They share a private smile, and his chest aches with the familiarity.

They’re so… happy. Together. The two of them. And Zuko doesn’t know how any of those dreams could come true, how either of _them_ could love _him_ , when they’re already so perfect for each other.

Sokka glances up, and he catches Zuko looking before he can turn away.

“Hey, Zuko,” Sokka says, “we’re going to see if we can find any dinner on this thing. Wanna come?”

The idea of eating anything right now makes his stomach roll. The fact that everyone in the room is suddenly looking at him doesn’t help. He feels like his arms and legs are made of lead as he forces himself to stand.

“No thanks,” Zuko says. “I’m just gonna… I’m tired.”

“Oh,” Sokka says. “Yeah, sure. Rest up, buddy.”

They’re in the Fire Palace, Suki at his elbow, Sokka across from him. She’s leaning into Zuko’s arm. Sokka is _right there_ , and she’s leaning into him—

“Sokka, we can’t do this anymore,” Suki says.

Zuko glances up at her, and when he turns Sokka looks just as surprised as Zuko feels. Dread curls sour in his stomach when Sokka hesitates, frowns.

“What, you’re just… giving up?” Sokka asks. He sounds incredulous. Suki snorts.

“No, not giving up,” she says. “Just. Trying something new.”

She puts a hand on Zuko’s arm. Zuko stares at it, and stares—

Zuko jolts awake.

_Oh._

He swings his legs off the edge of the airship cot, suddenly wide awake. He'd chosen one with the sheets folded into military corners, but the blanket still packed away into a drawer, and had hoped that meant it hadn't been used by the last soldiers to man this ship. The metal floor echoes strangely under his boots, the sound both familiar from his three years at sea and strangely discordant. 

His heart races as he replays the dream in his mind, because... it’s him. It’s _his fault_. He’s the reason they break up. He’s the reason that those futures are possible. He…

He can’t let this happen. 

He _won't_ let this happen. He's made a lot of mistakes in his life, and hurt a lot of people, and... they deserve better. They already _have_ better, they have each other, and Zuko refuses to ruin that for them. But... he’s seeing multiple futures, one with Sokka, one with Suki, and that means that neither are set in stone yet. That means he can still change this. It has to, because they deserve to be happy, and Zuko—

He scrubs a hand over his face. It’s early, even for him, but he knows he won’t be able to fall asleep again, so he finds Chit Sang in the engine room and relieves him of duty.

The night before the comet, Zuko stumbles across them both sitting around a dying fire, awake long past the hour they all should have gone to sleep. It’s too late for him to pretend he isn’t intruding, so when Suki asks him to join them, he drops into the empty spot across from them and stokes the fire to a healthier burn.

“Sometimes I worry it’ll never end,” Suki says.

“It will,” Zuko says, almost unthinking. Reason catches up to his overtired mind a moment later, but by then Sokka is already laughing quietly.

“Aren’t you usually the pessimistic one?” he teases.

Zuko hesitates. He probably shouldn’t say more. It’s hard to explain, hard to rationalize even to himself. He shouldn’t say anything, but… he wants to tell someone.

“I’ve been having... dreams,” he says.

“Dreams,” Suki repeats.

Idly, he draws a rough form in the sand. An eye, lips, a wolf-tail, or maybe a half-up bob. Zuko strikes it out with the heel of his palm.

“Visions?” Zuko tries. “Of... things?”

They’re staring at him like he’s lost his mind…

No, not like that. Nothing unkind.

They’re staring like they don’t understand, but they’re trying to. Zuko clears his throat.

“Like, a few days before the Boiling Rock, I dreamed of Suki in the prison yard,” Zuko says. “I’ve seen… things that happen. Or—dreams of us, in a different time, older and...”

He grasps for a recent dream, something fresh in his mind. Something like—

Suki, older, with a restless girl in her lap. She pulls her hair up in even sections, not a strand out of place. _My mother gave this to me, so take good care of it._

(She catches Zuko watching them. It must be obvious what he's thinking, that he loves her, that he loves _them,_ because her smile tilts a little in amusement, and she hooks a finger in the belt of his robe to pull him in—)

“Like Suki’s hair band. It reminds you of your mother,” Zuko says.

He regrets the example immediately. Suki’s expression twitches, surprise lighting up her features for only a moment before hurt leaks in. She whips around to stare at Sokka then, flush and unhappy.

“Sokka,” Suki hisses. “That was private! I can’t believe you.”

“I didn’t!” Sokka insists.

“He didn’t,” Zuko says. He scrambles for something to say that might fix it, but he’s said it so confidently that he worries she won’t believe him. “You told me. Or. You’re going to. I didn’t mean to—”

“Zuko,” Sokka cuts him off.

He looks wildly skeptical. Zuko is pretty sure they’ve told stories about Sokka’s general distrust of fortune tellers before, and he’s sure he’s not looking much more credible. Sokka glances over at Suki, like he’s warring with what to say. She takes a breath.

“You can seriously _see_ the future?” Suki asks. “And you never thought, hey, maybe this could be useful with the whole _saving the world_ thing?”

“Well, no,” Zuko says at length. “I can’t really control it.”

Sokka frowns, not necessarily unhappy with him, but considering. Suki looks less hurt, too. They make uncertain eye contact, sharing a thought.

“Do we… I mean,” Suki says. “We _win_ , right? If there’s a future for you to see, that means we win.”

Zuko glances at Sokka to gauge his reaction. Sokka just nods, encouraging and tentatively curious. Apparently, somewhere in that look they shared, they decided he isn’t lying, or imagining things. Zuko is strangely relieved, even if it’s just desperate hope for tomorrow that makes them believe him.

Zuko considers Suki’s question. He thinks of those visions—both possibilities, of the Fire Lady, and of the Fire Prince Consort. A future with Suki, or a future with Sokka, and an argument that tears their relationship apart, with Zuko in the middle.

“It’s complicated,” Zuko says. “I’ve seen multiple timelines. I think… there are more than one possible futures, so I don’t know for sure. But from what I’ve seen? Yeah. We win.”

Sokka and Suki exchange private, soft smiles. He can almost believe they’re meant for him, too, when they turn back with the ghosts of those looks still on their lips. He tilts his head down and traces the edge of that scattered shape in the sand. He’s almost afraid to look up again, like he’ll see some memory of the future in their faces.

“Don’t tell Aang,” Zuko adds as an afterthought. “He doesn’t need the pressure.”

On the night before his coronation, he dreams of Sokka in royal robes, wearing Roku’s crown, moonlit, practically glowing, sweeping out the balcony doors to meet him for a crushing kiss—

On the night after his coronation, he dreams of Suki, wearing his mother’s hairpiece, leaning into his side in the hallway outside the council chambers. The words she’s saying are slippery, but the look on the general’s face speaks volumes, and he can’t help but turn and grin and kiss her breathless, he doesn’t care who they offend—

He doesn’t know which future will come to pass, but no matter which one it is, whether he marries Sokka or Suki, he knows this:

He is destined to be the architect of their misery.

Because Sokka and Suki are _happy_. They’re perfect for each other. And he’s seen for himself that it’s only a matter of time until he comes between them.

It’s a problem.

It’s a problem, because they won’t just let him be. He walks in on them in the training room, and they invite him to spar with them. He tries to take his dinners in his rooms, and they show up at his door. Even arguing _he’s busy, he’s the Fire Lord, he doesn’t have time_ doesn’t stop them.

Zuko thinks—he’s not in love, but he thinks…

He thinks he could be.

(He _knows_ he could be. He’s seen it himself.)

It’s a problem. And he doesn’t know what he’s going to do about it, yet.

Zuko is sitting on a cushion with his legs crossed under him. It’s _hot_ , even by Fire Nation standards, and he’d shucked his outer robe hours ago. It’s not strictly proper, but Suki and Sokka are wearing much less than he is, and with much less dignity. They’d draped themselves over Zuko’s floor the moment they walked in, and proceeded to moan about the heat nonstop since then.

Zuko is _not_ looking, because he has correspondences to read. He has correspondences to read, which are very important, and require his attention, and so he is _not looking_.

Suki’s head is resting on Sokka’s bare thigh. Sokka’s sitting across from him, with his foot stretched out between them. Every time he shifts, his ankle brushes against Zuko’s knee. He shifts often, because Sokka is incapable of sitting still. His skin is flush warm from the heat, and every whisper of a touch is its own little torture.

Zuko has read the same paragraph three times now. The words are the same. He’s not really paying attention. Something is prickling at the back of his mind. He feels almost off-kilter, like he’s forgetting something, but Suki and Sokka are so damn distracting he can’t bring himself to figure out what.

Zuko dares, just once, to glance up. Suki is watching him with a hawk-like intensity. His gaze darts down again, embarrassed to have been caught. He hopes she'll let him get away with it. She does, sometimes, if she's taking pity on him, but he can see from the corner of his eye that she's leaning forward now, staring intently. He braces himself for the teasing.

Instead, Suki sighs and shoves herself to her feet, all the weather-beaten lethargy suddenly gone. She practically throws herself down onto the cushion next to him, presses her weight into his side.

“Sokka, we can’t do this anymore,” Suki says, and Zuko goes cold. He jerks his gaze up from his scroll so quickly he gets a little dizzy. She’s not looking at him, though. She’s looking at Sokka.

Sokka raises an eyebrow at her. Not surprised. Skeptical.

“What, you’re just… giving up?” Sokka asks. He sounds as incredulous as Zuko remembers. Suki snorts.

“No!” Zuko shouts, before Suki can respond. Suki blinks at him, startled, but she pulls her hand back, just a little. They’re both staring at him like he’s lost his mind.

“You can’t break up,” Zuko says.

Suki tilts her head. Sokka raises an eyebrow.

They share a _look_.

“What makes you think we’re breaking up?” Suki asks.

“Uh,” Zuko says. It feels a bit like admitting a dirty secret, like he’s been hiding something. Which he _has_. He should have come clean from the start, back when he’d started having these dreams. He should have told him what he’d seen, what he’d _do to them_. He should have told the truth, from the moment he knew he would ruin them, at least.

“I… saw it,” he says. Their eyes light up in understanding—and confusion. They exchange a quick glance, like they’re assessing the other’s reaction, and almost seem more puzzled to see the mirrored bafflement there. Suki raises an eyebrow. Sokka shrugs.

Zuko presses on, feeling flustered, “But you can’t break up. You’re good together. You love each other. All this time, and… you just can’t, not for me, so...”

“Zuko, shut up for a second,” Suki says, not unkindly. She’s actually laughing a little, and Zuko tries not to be distracted as she covers his mouth with her fingertips, hiding her growing smile behind her hand.

“We’re not breaking up,” she says. The exasperated fondness in her expression as she turns toward Sokka only makes Zuko more confused. “I _told_ you subtle wouldn’t work.”

“It would have worked!” Sokka protests. Suki rolls her eyes. “It would have! You’re just too impatient!”

Zuko feels like he's missing half the conversation, glancing between the two of them, Suki's amused grin, and Sokka's stubborn pout.

“You’re not breaking up?” he asks, because that, at least, he’s gathered. Suki snorts.

“Kind of the opposite, actually,” Suki says. She leans a little more into his space. Her fingertips ghost over his calf and land lightly on his knee.

“Zuko, I’d like to kiss you,” she murmurs. Zuko freezes, but when he turns a frantic look at Sokka, he’s just grinning at them both. Suki taps his cheek to get his attention. “Sokka would _also_ like to kiss you,” she clarifies.

“What?” Zuko croaks. He feels like... he must not be hearing her right.

“We’d like to kiss you together. At the same time,” she says. “Well, maybe not the _same_ time…”

“No, the same time sounds pretty good, actually,” Sokka says.

“What?” Zuko repeats. His heart is pounding. His cheeks feel flush. Sokka scoots off the edge of the cushion he’s lounging on and slides across the floor, closer, until his knees are pressed against Zuko’s, close enough to lean in. He takes Zuko’s hand, tentative like he’s giving him the chance to pull away, and some terrifyingly brave part of him squeezes his hand back. Sokka flushes, pleased, and Suki grins.

Suki leans in and kisses him then, confident, sweet. She tastes like water cucumbers and pomelo lime, like the fruit juices they’d been drinking earlier, when they’d been dramatically lounging half-naked in his rooms—

Zuko laughs, breathless around the tightness in his chest. He knows what the feeling is, this time. It’s been building for a while now, with every laugh, every quiet night, every lingering touch. Sokka laughs too, even if maybe he doesn’t get the joke—or maybe he’s just happy. Sokka leans in and presses a kiss to Suki’s hair, then Zuko’s in quick succession, grinning so wide his cheeks must hurt. Zuko’s just _warm_ , in a way that has nothing to do with the heat.

They’re both looking at him like they do on the training grounds—pleased, like they know they’ve won.


End file.
